In Need of Rescue
by royslady51
Summary: After JE, Rose didn't get to grow old with the Human Doctor. As soon as the connection to the TARDIS was broken, he turned to dust and blew away in the seabreeze. He didn't even have time to realize what had happened before he was gone. She still had a pocket sized version of the dimension cannon on her and she fired it without even aiming it.


**Summary: **_**After JE, Rose didn't get to grow old with the Human Doctor. As soon as the connection to the TARDIS was broken, his 900+ years caught up with him and he turned to dust and blew away in the seabreeze. He didn't even have time to realize what had happened before he was gone. She still had a pocket sized version of the dimension cannon on her and she fired it off without even aiming it...trying to follow him.**_

_**Author's Note/Advanced Warning: DUE to some recent problems with a few people, I find myself needing to add a bit of information that has nothing, or at least, very little, to do with the fic itself.  
**_

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**FOREWORD**

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This is a completely AU/AR story so please do _**not **_attempt to shove canon into it, when reviewing. Some people do and it just proves to anyone who sees it that those that do are both very silly **and **kinda stupid, as well. Please do not use my reviews page to make a idiot out of yourself in public. _**It's embarrassing to watch.**_

**If any of you try the cyber-stalking technique on _me_, as I've seen some of you do to a friend of mine here, you're gonna _regret_ doing so, since I will make it a point to ensure that you quickly find yourself inside Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary as a resident! **

**Are we clear on that? I'm 51 not 15 _and I eat would-be bullies for breakfast_. Particularly the sort that are committing felonies by doing so! If you are from outside the USA, our feds DO talk to Interpol.  
**

** _I will not bother alerting the administrators of this website to this kind of a problem because they are not law enforcement personnel_...instead I will report you directly to the FBI. This is the only warning you will get.**

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_Now, all that said, I don't mind discussions with opposing view points as long as you're polite and __**constructive **__criticism is fine as long as the word 'canon' and suggestions or complaints that I ain't canon compliant don't enter into it...__**cuz I said that already. **_In other words, if you can't be friendly, polite, intelligent **_and_ **useful, keep your comments to yourself. If you get nasty don't expect me to put up with it...because what will happen, _is that I will put you in your place with a quickness...**and I will do it in public.**  
_

_**NOW, on to the story...**_

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_**In Need of Rescue**_

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It took her a little while, but she finally figured out that she _had _landed in the correct universe, but it was long before Pete's World had split off, it was long before she was born, too. Unfortunately, _that _meant that the era she was in was near the end of the last Ice Age. She had used the Dimension Canon one last time after the clone had blown away, the Doctor's departure causing his Years to catch up to his clone and the clone was dust and _gone _in the blink of an eye.

_Gone_...taking her future with him. The pocket cannon crumbled to useless bits of trash in her hand as she landed. There would be no more travel...not on her own, anyway.

It was amazing the things she had actually retained, skill-wise, despite thinking she'd never use them again. Like bow making, arrow manufacture and the making of boar spears. She had, at one time or Time or another learned to find dry, usable firewood in the heaviest snow or most sodden, rain-soaked forest, to make and use leather for various needs including clothing and portable shelters, learned to make short, light skis and snowshoes for heavier snow, to locate, if on Earth, quartz and flint to set off sparks big enough to start a fire from scratch...in short, she had herself pretty well supplied in a few days. She had even learned once, to cut intricate jewels with primitive tools...and string them on leather cords for bracelets and necklaces. That would do for a craft, she thought...and supply her with trade items.

Budding trees and melting snow told her that it was early spring, finding animal traps, old ones as they were falling apart, told her there _were _humans somewhere pretty close. Survival over a longer period would require the company of others, there were too many large predators to make living alone viable...but there _was _danger to the ancient Timestream if she did so...she prayed that the Doctor was paying attention. _Communication _alone would likely cause some kind of fluctuation, unless of course the TARDIS was still translating for her. And then there were the little things she was used to having that she could and would make...because those little things were less likely to cause _damage _while still getting his attention.

She did wonder which Doctor was watching this far back, though, because she strongly doubted it'd be one that knew her. And she _knew _she'd be in trouble for it, but...the alternatives didn't really leave her much choice.

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She had found them at the end of Spring, wandering into what looked like several camps of people from all over and quickly running into a language problem. She learned the local language fairly fast, but to _do _that she had to trade _words for words_, teaching her teachers 'modern' English in the process. That wasn't what got the Doctor's attention, though. Oh no, what got his attention was her bow...for she hadn't gained her bow making skill on _Earth_, nor learnt to use it here...

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"_That's_ not bloody _possible_...not from one of you lot." Came an annoyed voice behind her, in clear English, after she had taken down a deer with her arrow. "That isn't even an Earth style bow."

"_Took you long enough to find me_...and why didn't learning the local language set you off? Which regeneration of Doctor are you? Time Lost companion here." She answered, hesitating before she turned around.

"Time Lost..._oh you poor girl_." He laid a hand on her shoulder and put the fingers of the other under her chin to raise her face. "Yes. Time does swirl around you, doesn't it?"

She knew him. Had seen pictures of this him.

"O_h_...I've seen you in your Eighth form, in the _Gallery_...how _long _have you had that body...could be too dangerous to go with you if you're on the tail end of it. Depending on what happens, so _much_ could change. Massive, great huge, universe changing as a whole, type of _editing_, I suppose, would be a good word." She paused, placed a hand on his wrist and suggested, "Might have to forward a memory to Tenth, come and get me. That might be wiser. Not at all what I'd _want_...but that's up to you. I can't make that call. Or actually, I _could_...but I refuse to. It's your timeline, not mine."

"Ah, yes. Indeed it is. Sounds like I've trained _well_." He studied her. "I've been recalled to Gallifrey."

"Call Ten, tell him that I'm more than willing to perform the events of Sat Five in the _now _instead in the _then _and let your _elder _self make the call. It happened on Nine's watch, Ten should be able to..."

"In that case, yes, my Tenth self would be able to make the call."

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She was silent for a moment, "Now, on to other things. I haven't shared out the bow or taught anyone how to make _this _kind. _Did _teach them to make and use a standard, English longbow, though. Learned jewel making on Taquiz Nine and used the skill on local stone to make trade items. Long story. Long enough to need Vortex Time. Let me get my things, then get me out of here?"

"Yes, certainly. You seriously can't _stay _here."

She gave him a cheeky, tongue touched smile. "Hmm. Let's see, a drafty, _cold _cave in highly _primitive _conditions during an Ice Age or quite probably _my _proper room in the protective grace of the TARDIS...and oh yeah, _**YOU**_..._duh?"_

In response to her cheek, the Eighth Doctor threw back his head and roared with laughter.

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He wasn't usually the touchy sort, at least not with someone he didn't know yet. But Rose was obviously someone very much at the very end of what little personal strength she had left. She had wrapped herself around one of the support struts in the console room and flatly refused to tell him why. His ship simply told him _he _was too young to be told, that Rose belonged to his Tenth...and that Ten would _know_ why.

"I am to take you to Eleven." He told Rose after speaking to his elder form. Tenth had forbidden the change, _as you expected_. he told himself. It was, he had told himself, just _too _huge...he'd also told him to talk to Eleven instead. The older, boyish looking self told him that there _was_ a relatively minor change that could and _should_ be made and that he was to do that first, before anything else. The TARDIS gave the Eighth the date that River would be lost and told him to take her to Eleventh after that. _Right _after, in fact.

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"Why Eleventh?" Rose asked later as he explained the plans the three of him had made.

"Because my currently oldest elder me _told_ me that there are things Ten must do and my remaining time in _that_ body is too short for you to share the remaining tenure. Regeneration, so my Tenth self said, is already beginning. There are _also_ things I must do in my Eleventh body, before I can return you to me...but once I do, you will be fine...and so shall I. Now _hush_."

She stared at him owlishly until he blinked first. He looked a bit non-plussed, not many humans tried _that _method and none, until Rose, had succeeded. She was an _odd_ one, for sure. "_How_..."

"Practiced on house cats: Common, 21st Century, Earth, house cats. Some, part _who knows_ _what_ and part Siamese cats, actually...if you can make a _cat_ blink, Time Lords aren't a problem...particularly _you_. If there's one single thing that _every _companion learns, fairly fast, it's that you, Doctor, have the attention span of a _gerbil_."

**_"Oi!"_**

"Well, _maybe_. I think the gerbil actually has a longer one and I _know _common _mice_ do, so..."

_"Roooooose!"_

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_****TBC****_

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For those who leave caustic, nasty, biting, off-topic or incorrectly targeted reviews and have their PMs turned off so I can't answer you...keep in mind that if you get nasty, I _**will **_reply anyway and** I will post said reply on my profile where **_**everyone **_**can see it, since I can't do it in private so it's just you. **I've done that with several people already. I have no problem embarrassing you, publicly, if _**you **_start something. I am fifty one years old, peeps, not fifteen. I have no need of those little cliches most young people run around in, so, if you were under the impression that your bigoted or judgmental opinions matter to me..._**think again.**_

For those who **try **to review anonymously, I _**moderate **_anonymous reviews to weed out flames. Get nasty there **and after I report it**, I will delete it and at that point, **I promise you that it will never see the light of day.**

Reviewers who leave _personal _remarks instead of concentrating on the story (I've had a few of those too) will be reported. I'm fifty-one, not fifteen and so not at all inclined to tolerate BS from _**anyone**_. So, don't bother trolling because I don't bother with using JUST the report button, either, _I __**email **__support right after I send in a report_.

Translation: They get notified **twice**. Why? Cuz they answer an email a _**lot **_faster than reports, that's why. _**They get the email and go and locate said report**_. And do something about it so that when they reply to the email, they can say, **'We've **_**already **_**taken care of the matter.'**

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**So, there's that then. Happy Reviewing!  
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